Almost nine months after the launch of Apple Pay, Barclays and Barclaycard have confirmed that its customers will be able to use Apple Pay from today.

The new service, which goes live in the UK straightaway, will give millions more UK consumers the ability to conveniently make payments using iPhone, Apple Watch and iPad at over 400,000 contactless locations in the UK, across the London transport network, as well as when shopping within participating retailers' apps.

Barclays, who has been pushing its own payment solutions over those from others, is the last major UK bank to join the Apple Pay system.

"We are passionate about helping customers access services and carry out their day to day transactions in the way that suits them. As part of this, we have developed a range of digital innovations that allow people to choose how, when and where they bank and make payments. Adding to the existing choice, from today both Barclays debit and Barclaycard credit card customers can use Apple Pay to make payments with their Apple device across the UK," said Ashok Vaswani, CEO Barclays UK.

Earlier in the year the bank had told some customers that it would be launching Apple Pay services by the end of March.